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Mostly Dead Is Slightly Alive
Halloweenhas morphed into a holiday where people see how much it takes to scare them. Horror movies, haunted houses, dangerous pranks; people like to be scared.Miracle Max had his own methods for...
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It’s All in the Numbers - Sizes in Nature
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Breaking the Size Barrier – Giant Bacteria, part 1
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Fish Guts and Cancer – Giant Bacteria, part 2
The gut of a fish is a strange place to go looking for bacteria. It’s an even stranger place to find the second largest bacterium on Earth. Epulopisciumfishelsoni (E. fishelsoni) hangs out in the...
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Give Thanks For The Cranberry
Biology concepts – epigynous berries, seed dispersion, scarification, drupe, endocarp Ocean Spray alone sells 86.4 million cans of jellied cranberry sauce each year. No matter which sauce you prefer, I...
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Corn Color Concepts
Biology concepts – maize, transposon, antigenic variation, cereal grain, food grain, caryopsis The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, uses corncobs to make murals on the sides of the building -...
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The Best Cure for Insomnia Is To Get A Lot Of Sleep
Biology concepts – theories of sleep, REM sleep, circadian rhythms, neural plasticityYou open the door to your house and find your roommate sprawled out on the couch. Is he sleeping, unconscious, or...
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Snow Saves Lives
Biology concepts – subnivean zone, chionophiles, antifreeze proteins, UV vision, snow blindness, photokeratitis Rudolph the red nosed reindeer didn’t start as a song or even a Rankin and Bass stop...
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A Gift Worth Its Weight In Gold
Biology concepts – toxicity, trace elements Say hello to the Holterman nugget of New South Wales, Australia, supposedly the largest gold nugget ever found. Strictly speaking, it isn’t a nugget, but...
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The Resin For The Season
Biology concepts – sap, resin, latex, mucilageFrankincense is a solid material than starts out as a liquid that oozes from a tree. In the presence of air, the resin turns hard. When burned, many...
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One Myrrh-aculous Christmas Gift
Biology concepts – synergism, multidrug resistant cancersThe Commiphora myrrha is the classic source for myrrh resin. It is a short tree that grows in low moisture and poor soil areas. Its branches are...
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It’s An Exercise Resolution
Biology concepts – exercise, stress, aging, mood, neurotransmitters, monoamines, endocannabinoids, endorphins, blood brain barrierExercise is a common New Year’s resolution. You want to test yourself...
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Exercise Puts Me To Sleep – You Too
Biology concepts – sleep induction, circadian cycle, narcolepsy, insomnia, anterior hypothalamus, neurotransmitters, cytokines, inflammationHarriet Tubman gained the respect of all after the Civil War,...
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Pump Up Your Brain
Biology concepts – learning, memory, attention, concentration, hippocampus, neurotransmitters, neurotrophins, executive function, processing speed, exerciseMany people exercise because of how it makes...
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An Infectious, Genetic Disease? Better Sleep On It.
Biology concepts – thermoregulation, sleep, genetic disease, infectious disease, central dogma of molecular biology, form follows functionEven rats have to get some sleep. It was nice to have the...
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Plants That Don’t Sleep Will Take The Dirt Nap
Biology concepts – nastic movements, turgor pressure, evolutionary pressure, tropism, osmosisIf you don’t let a Mimosa pudica (sensitive plant) plant rest at night, it will wilt away to nothing. A...
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Form Follows Function - It’s About Time
Biology concepts – circadian rhythm, vision sense, adaptation, parasitism,form follows functionThe sun and the moon are symbols of differentactivity cycles. As with everything else, we have to givethem...
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Sunrise, Sunset – Life In the Twilight
Biology concepts – activity patterns, crepuscular, co-evolution, active pollinationNocturnal and diurnal activity patterns are like vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. But what if you like rose hip or...
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When The Early Bird Is Also The Night Owl
Biology concepts – cathemerality, circadian rhythm, adaptation, predator/prey relationsOne carnivorous and three vegetarian friends stranded on a island – what could go wrong?The 2005 movie...
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Big Bugs, Little Bugs
The titan beetle (Titanus giganteus), is not necessarily a gentle giant. Its jaws can snap pencils and easily cut into human flesh…. and they fly. Calm down, the adults don’t feed, they just look for...
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